Keywords Can Make Or Break Your Web Site Rank

July 9, 2009 | Filed Under SEO

by Stephen Grisham Sr.

A keyword is one word or a 2-4 word phrase, summing up the content of a web page so that your web page is correctly indexed by search engines. The smart selection of keywords, and where they are placed in the web page, can make or break your website.

The “head” section of your page contains the “meta tags”. It allows the crawlers to view a synopsis of your page’s content. Meta tags have a size limit. Conjunctions, articles (a, an, the), or any other words not carrying significant weight should not be included in keywords. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and (sometimes) adverbs should be used as much as possible.

The Keyword Meta tag: These meta tags used to be very important for keyword placement and indexing. But people abused these with keyword stuffing, or inserting repetitive, irrelevant keywords into the meta tags to trick spiders into ranking their sites higher. Search engines have caught on and penalize sites that stuff keywords. It’s a common belief that Google no longer pays attention to your keyword meta tag. It can’t hurt to put it in, though, just in case. And there are other search engines in addition to Google.

The Title Tag should contain keywords. A “bot” (search engine crawler or “spider”) places a lot of weight on keywords that are placed into the title. Just like the other meta tags, the title tag should be found/ placed in the head section. Be brief; leave the keywords near the front, and maintain a natural language. Just like the keyword tag, don’t attempt to artificially cram keywords into your title.

Description Tags: Place a description tag in the head section of your web page. Include appropriate keywords in your description, but maintain good but concise grammar and simple language structure.

The H1 and H2 tags: These are used heavily by the search engine spiders. They are like section breaks or titles (but not to be confused with the title tag).

Comments in Images: Spiders cannot interpret images, but they can detect the “alt” text in your image tag. That makes this area ideal for keyword placement.

The Body of the Page: Lastly, the page should make sense. You want your keywords, H1 tags, H2 tags, description tags, and the text body to be applicable and in harmony. The most important keywords should be featured in the first two-thirds of the content. Keep in mind that if your keywords are stuffed in artificially, even iin the basic content of the page, your page rank may suffer as well as your reputation.

About the Author:

Stephen Grisham, Sr. is a copy writer for InfoServe Media, LLC. InfoServe Media is a Houston web design and web hosting company. Or if you just need a few changes to an existing site, InfoServe Media also offers website maintenance. Fast and Affordable.

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